Talential
Investor deck · Pre-seed 2026
Investor deck · Pre-seed 2026

Every interview
is a blind date.

We're building the platform that ends it, for SMEs and GenZ across ASEAN and beyond.

CONFIDENTIAL · NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION talential.net
The Problem
The problem
Hiring was broken before AI.
AI made it worse.
01
Before AI: already broken
The best interviewee got the job. Not the best worker.
Gut feel, CVs, Facebook posts. No signal. No verification. The most polished candidate won. Not the best one for the job.
02
With AI screeners: it got worse
Now it's a keyword game.
AI filters reward candidates who know how to game the system. The real signal is gone. The blind date got blinder.
03
The result: unchanged
60% of hires fail on attitude.
Not skills. Not experience. The things no resume has ever captured and no AI has ever screened for.
98% of businesses in ASEAN are SMEs. They hire from Facebook. No ATS. No HR department. No tool that was ever built for them.
98%
of ASEAN businesses
are SMEs
Never Be Solved
Never be solved
Three structural failures
no one has fixed.
04
The resume is self-claimed.
Every selection starts with a document written by the candidate, unverified by anyone. No external truth signal exists in the process.
05
There is no centralized ledger.
No platform captures what happened at the interview or during probation. Every insight vanishes. The next hire starts from zero. Permanently.
06
GenZ is 25% of the workforce. Built for none of them.
They work gig, part-time, and full-time by 20. They need flexibility, short chapters, and a way to show their work. Not a CV built for a linear career that doesn't exist yet.
The Solution
The solution
We rebuilt hiring.
From the ground up.
🤝
The data layer
Humans validate both sides. No one can fake the record.
Peers validate what talent is actually like to work with. Talent validates what businesses are actually like to work for. No self-claimed skills. No AI-generated profiles. Real signal, both directions. Building a trust layer that makes every match more accurate over time.
🧠
One framework
AAC: the signal that actually predicts performance.
Attitude Aptitude Communication
Captured peer-to-peer. Validated by people who actually worked with the talent. Surfaced before the first interview. Not discovered only after hiring.
🎯
One target
Built for SMEs and GenZ. Both underserved.
SMEs are 98% of ASEAN businesses and have no real hiring tool. GenZ is the incoming workforce and fits no existing process. Talential is the first platform built for both sides, from scratch.
The Product
Product
The platform in action.
🔗One platformPost a job, review applicants, track interviews and probation — all in one place. No ATS needed.
🏅Verified track recordEvery badge and experience is confirmed by someone who actually worked with the talent.
📊Data on both sidesTalent sees salary benchmarks and employer scores. Businesses see real behavioral profiles.
Business screen Timeline screen
Where We Are
Where we are
Product live.
Proof building.
Talential soft launch event
Soft launch with 30 F&B / Retail brands
10 → 100
10 F&B / Retail brands active now. Aiming for 100 by July 2026.
HCMC F&B Retail Hospitality 3 universities
✅
Product: live
Onboarding businesses and universities now. The core loop is live.
🔬
AAC: in testing
Testing our framework to surface what makes entry-level talent unique. No CV, no experience. Personality, communication style, and fit are the signal.
📈
Product-market fit: in validation
Brands testing until October. PMF validated when businesses return to hire again and talent completes their journey on platform.
How We Do It
How we do it
Three principles.
Built into every layer.
🪟
Transparency
No-show tracking. Talent reviews businesses after every interaction. Salary benchmarks visible to all. Like Glassdoor, but built for frontliners and the SMEs who hire them.
⚖️
Accountability
No-shows are tracked. Businesses must respond to every applicant. Both sides have skin in the game. Better behavior on both sides raises the quality of every user on the platform and reduces turnover.
🏆
Reputation
Showed up to an interview: you earn it. Passed probation: you own it. Collected badges: you keep them forever. Businesses earn reputation too: talent rates management style and work environment.
AAC assessment
Market Size
Market size
$700 billion.
All of it runs on self-claimed data.
Total market
Global
White collar Blue collar Gig SME + Enterprise
$700B
Global hiring market
V2 · 2027
ASEAN
Thailand · Indonesia Philippines · Singapore 600M+ workforce 98% SME
$45B
ASEAN hiring market
V1 · Active now
Vietnam · HCMC
400K+ SMEs 500K+ GenZ students 96% SME economy Facebook = #1 hiring channel
$180M
Talential SAM · HCMC · all roles*
Market Validation
48.5% of F&B businesses report recruitment difficulties
Source: iPOS / VIRAC
2,000+ F&B roles posted per week across HCMC Facebook and Zalo groups
Monitored across 18 groups · March 2026
*$180M SAM · 400K+ SMEs in HCMC × avg annual hiring spend
Source: iPOS / VIRAC · 2024. We start in HCMC — the playbook works in Bangkok, Jakarta, Lagos, and Bogota.
Competitive
Competitive positioning
They chased the 2%.
We're building for the other 98.
What the market needs Facebook
Groups		 LinkedIn
JobStreet		 AI screeners Gig platforms Talential
AAC signal before interview✕✕✕✕✓
Peer-validated competencies✕✕✕✕✓
Portable career record (talent owns it)✕~✕✕✓
Built for SMEs: zero ATS needed~✕✕✕✓
Gig + part-time + full-time in one✕✕✕~✓
Designed for GenZ + frontliner ASEAN~✕✕~✓
Centralized reputation ledger✕✕✕✕✓
Almost all the market still runs on resumes and job boards. Now everyone is piling into AI screeners.
Talential is a trust network. A different product, a different moat.
98%
of businesses are SMEs
with no HR tech serving them
Red ocean (saturated)
Blue ocean (clear space)
Talential
Market segment → SME / physical economy Trust signal → peer-validated Corporate Mid-market SME / gig Keyword AI score Peer trust Red ocean Blue ocean Facebook JobStreet VNWorks Indeed Timviec WorkVN LinkedIn TopCV Glints GrabJobs JobHopin uncontested talential SME · peer trust

Every existing player competes in the corporate / keyword quadrant. The SME + peer-trust space has no incumbent.

The Team
The team
Operators.
Not theorists.
Gwen Cheylan
Gwen Cheylan
CEO & Founder
15+ years building digital platforms in fintech, e-commerce, hospitality and real estate across Vietnam and Thailand. Former President of La French Tech Vietnam. A decade researching ASEAN hiring systems.
Psychology · Platform building · ASEAN
LinkedIn →
Andrew Schwabe
Andrew Schwabe
Co-founder · AI Researcher & Architect
Founded Formotiv, a behavioral biometrics AI platform. Co-founder of Saigon AI. 8× founder with 15+ years building AI systems and behavioral data products.
AI · Behavioral data · Architecture
LinkedIn →
Rebecca Joy
Rebecca Joy
CFO · Data Science
30 years across pharma, high-tech, and data science. CEO of Saigon AI. UC Berkeley-trained. Brings financial rigor and data infrastructure expertise to Talential's operations and modelling.
Finance · Data science · Operations
LinkedIn →
Nathanael Ohana
Nathanael Ohana
AI Operations
Design project management background. 7+ years coordinating large-scale projects across ASEAN and Europe. Building Talential's AI-driven operational workflows and product processes.
Operations · Design · AI workflows
LinkedIn →
+ 4 additional: community, brand design, marketing, administration
Revenue Model
Revenue model
Businesses pay.
Talent is always free.
Entry listing
F&B · Retail · Hospitality
$5/listing
Mid listing
Supervisor · Coordinator
$12/listing
Senior listing
Manager · Director
$99/listing
Gig posting
Part-time · Freelance
$30/mo
Base Realistic Conservative · 8% early churn · 1.5 listings Stress-tested pricing for HCMC SMEs. High early churn reflects the testing phase. Revenue grows as retention improves in H2.
Bull Word-of-mouth 1.8× acquisition · peer referral Peer referrals kick in after M3. Each business brings 0.8 others. Talent network effect reduces churn and increases listing frequency.
Wildfire Viral loop 3× speed · GenZ flywheel GenZ talent flywheel activates. Students refer businesses, businesses refer students. Acquisition multiplies 3× and gig revenue layer scales fast.
Acquisition
Speed mult1.0×
Listings / biz / mo1.5
Gig uptake %10%
Mid listings %25%
Management %5%
Churn
Early M1–M68%
Mature M7–M125%
Full model in data room.
M12 EBITDA
—
Break-even
—
Cash to B/E
—
Businesses M12
—
Talent M12
—
Businesses M12
—
Job Listings M12
—
Gig Workers M12
—
Platform Growth
■ Businesses■ Gig workers— Talent— Listings
Monthly EBITDA
■ Profit■ Burn
The Ask
Talential
The ask · Pre-seed 2026
$1M
Pre-seed ask
HCMC launch · 12–14 months runway
40%
Product & Platform · $400K
Tech, development, servers, AI infrastructure
30%
Marketing · $300K
KOL, The Space, job fairs, universities, content
25%
Team · $250K
12 to 15 people
5%
Buffer · $50K
Legal, compliance, operations
Instrument
SAFE note
Post-money val.
$6M cap
Runway
12–14 months
T1 $500K day one · T2 $500K milestone-gated (50 paying businesses + retention signal)
Thank you.
We're building something different. Let's talk.
Roadmap · Q3 2026 → Q2 2027
Q3 2026 · Jul–Sep
Launch & Scale HCMC
  • 100 paying businesses milestone
  • KOL campaign launch · 10 creators
  • The Space activation · interview series
  • AAC framework v1 in testing
Q4 2026 · Oct–Dec
Full HCMC Rollout
  • Mobile app release (iOS + Android)
  • University cohort program · 5 campuses
  • F&B + Hospitality sector deep-dive
  • Job Fair 2.0
  • PMF validation: repeat hire + retention data
Q1 2027 · Jan–Mar
First ASEAN Market
  • Market entry test: Hanoi, Bangkok and Singapore
  • Local partnership program launch
  • Seed round preparation begins
Q2 2027 · Apr–Jun
ASEAN Expansion
  • 2nd ASEAN market active
  • Cross-border talent record portability
  • Seed round raise · $3–5M target
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